The megawatt smile is still there, and so is the swagger. But catch Carlos Gonzalez in a quiet moment and it becomes clear that his lingering slump and nagging injuries rest heavily on his shoulders.

"I love playing baseball. I love being out there," the two-time all-star left fielder said. "I'm doing everything I can to stay in the lineup every day. But it's tough, you know? I want to steal bases and make those diving plays in the outfield. But right now I'm just doing what I can to help the team win."

Right now, the Rockies aren't winning and CarGo, bothered by tendinitis in his left knee, isn't delivering.

After an ugly 2-7 road trip that wrapped up Sunday, the Rockies have fallen back to .500 and are 8½ games behind the Giants in the National League West. The Rockies open a 10-game homestand against the Diamondbacks on Tuesday night at Coors Field.

CarGo's numbers are down across the board. He's hitting .258 with an on-base percentage of .310, significantly below his career .297 batting average and career .354 OBP. On the recent road trip, he was only 2-for-20 (.100) with one home run and two RBIs.

Streaky hitters such as CarGo go through slumps, but one statistic screams for attention. Gonzalez has only two stolen bases. At this time a year ago, he had 12.

Advertisement

"My knee has been killing me since Day One," he said. "I don't want to make excuses, but it has changed my game, the way I play."

The tendinitis and on-and-off-again pain and swelling in his left index finger have plagued him. He gets daily treatment for both, but he said a trip to the disabled list is not going to be a cure for what ails him.

"Mine are not the kinds of injuries that put you on the DL," Gonzalez said. "You get a sprained ankle or a broken bone and you might be out for six to eight weeks, but you come back fixed. Mine are just the kind you have to play through."

Colorado Rockies' Carlos Gonzalez is greeted in the dugout after a two-run home run against the Cleveland Indians in the fourth inning of a baseball game Friday, May 30, 2014, in Cleveland. (Mark Duncan, The Associated Press )

So, on most days, CarGo trots out to left field and manager Walt Weiss inserts him in the No. 3 or No. 4 spot in the Rockies' lineup.

"He's a supremely talented player, and at some point he's going to take off," said Weiss, who isn't about to drop Gonzalez lower in the batting order.

There are games when Gonzalez appears close to snapping out of his funk. Friday night, during the Rockies' 6-2 loss to the Indians in Cleveland, he hit a two-run homer and made a diving catch in left-center. It was vintage CarGo.

But the next day, Gonzalez went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts in a 7-6 loss.

Weiss' faith in him remains unshaken.

(Click to enlarge)

"The other night, down late in the game, he dives for that ball in the gap, makes a catch against the wall," Weiss said. "Those are good signs that he's competing every day. The other night, he hit a home run. That's what he can do, change the game with one swing. It's tough to take him out of the lineup."

Gonzalez, though clearly frustrated, isn't about to panic.

"I know the talent I have and I just have to keep working," he said. "I remember back in 2010, I didn't start out that great, but if you look at the numbers, everything turned out all right."

Through June 1 that season CarGo was hitting .304 with a .337 on-base percentage, seven homers, 33 RBIs and seven stolen bases. He finished with a .336 batting average, a .376 on-base percentage, 34 home runs, 117 RBIs and 26 stolen bases — career highs in all of those categories.

"It's a long season. It's a grind," CarGo said. "I have to have faith that it's going to turn around."

The Rockies will cycle back to the top of their pitching rotation this week as they return home to face Arizona. That means De La Rosa, who has solidified his spot as Colorado's ace, will go against Arizona's Anderson, who was called up from Double-A last month to make his major-league debut. De La Rosa hasn't lost a game since April, and neither have the Rockies when he's pitched. He's pitched them to six straight wins (and a pending tie with San Francisco), with a 1.80 ERA in that span.

Local duo joining overseas exhibition excursionFilippo Swartz went to Italy, where his mother was born and he spent the first year or so of his life, every summer until he had to stick around to be a part of summer football activities for the Longmont High School team. Full Story

MacIntyre says the completed project will be best in Pac-12There were bulldozers, hard hats, mud, concrete trucks, blueprints, mud, cranes, lots of noise and, uh, mud, during the last recruiting cycle when Colorado football coach Mike MacIntyre brought recruits to campus. Full Story

Most people don't play guitar like Grayson Erhard does. That's because most people can't play guitar like he does. The guitarist for Fort Collins' Aspen Hourglass often uses a difficult two-hands-on-the-fretboard technique that Eddie Van Halen first popularized but which players such as Erhard have developed beyond pop-rock vulgarity.
Full Story